I’m not afraid of spiders, but I’m not mad keen on them either.

Earlier, I was lying on my bed doing a bit of work when I started to have a ‘ticcing fit’ – my muscles tensed and my body locked up entirely.

Leftwing Idiot came through to help me. He sat down on the bed, looked behind me and said, ‘Wow, look at that big spider!’

I couldn’t move or speak but he could obviously see alarm spreading across my face. Predictably, this encouraged him to go on talking about the spider, which I couldn’t see or move away from. He kept glancing dramatically in its direction with pantomime fear.

I wasn’t really worried and enjoyed his light-hearted teasing but I did desperately want to see how big it was.

As soon as I could move I swivelled round to have a look, and as soon as my speech returned I instructed him to dispose of the arachnid. He dutifully did this, much to my relief.

It wasn’t a huge spider after all, but I was glad I no longer had to share my bed with it.

Photo: Phil Myers